Sunday, August 31, 2014

Embryonic Stem Cell Hype Encore

I predicted in 2013 that the company which bought Geron would restart
its embryonic stem cell product human trial. Indeed, it is.

I could also have predicted the media would hype it to the moon. And
so the San Francisco Chronicle has in big headlines on the front page.
From, “Stem Cell Industry’s ‘Huge Development’ in Bay Area:”

Almost three years after a Bay Area
company shut down the world’s first clinical trial of a therapy using
embryonic stem cells, another local company is reviving the therapy. The
treatment drew international attention in 2010, when Geron in Menlo
Park began testing it in patients with severe spinal cord injuries. But
it scrapped the project a year later because of a lack of funds – a move
seen as a major blow to the nascent field. The therapy was then sold to
Asterias Biotherapeutics, also in Menlo Park. On Wednesday, Asterias
said it had gained regulatory permission to test whether the treatment,
which is derived from human embryonic stem cells, helps heal patients
with a different kind of spinal cord injury…

“It’s a huge development for the
field,” said Kevin Whittlesey, science officer at the agency. “We’re
starting to realize the potential touted so highly when embryonic stem
cell research was in its infancy.”

Let’s deconstruct this. First, the prominence of the story seeks to
help California’s boondoggle stem cell agency keep its door open

The trial was also described as a victory by the state’s
taxpayer-funded stem cell agency. Created by voters a decade ago, the
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is authorized to spend $3
billion on stem cell research, and its future rests on the results,
including any potential therapies, that those scientists and companies
develop. A $14.3 million grant will cover half the costs of Asterias’
trial, the company said.

Secondly, the original Geron study may not have worked all that well:

With some tweaks, Asterias is picking
up where Geron left off. Geron treated severe injuries in the thoracic
region of the spinal cord, which runs along the back. Asterias is
targeting injuries that originate in the neck, citing an outside study
that suggests injuries in this area are easier to treat. It will also
amp up the doses used to inject patients.

Finally, if this is such a big deal, why do the media constantly
ignore far more advanced human trials for spinal cord injury using
ethical stem cells? For example this very exciting peer reviewed study
[www.centrogiusti.eu/spinal/pubbl/OMA_RIC.pdf ]of paralyzed subjects
treated with olfactory stem cells:

Of the 13 patients assessed by
functional studies, 1 paraplegic patient (patient 9) can ambulate with 2
crutches and knee braces with no physical assistance and 10 other
patients can ambulate with walkers with or without braces with physical
assistance.

One tetraplegic patient (patient 13) ambulates with a walker, without knee braces or physical assistance.

Did you get that? Tetraplegia means paralyzed from the neck down! In this study, one totally paralyzed subject now uses a walker without assistance. Why isn’t that worth a front page story?
Let me answer my own question: Because when it comes to cultural deconstruction, it isn’t the treatment that matters so much as the source of the treatment. Adult stem cells just don’t shatter any moral boundaries.Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog.

Citing “undue burdens” on women seeking abortions, U.S. District
Judge Lee Yeakel stood with pro-abortion proponents in a decision that
halted the last portion of House Bill 2, the law responsible for
shuttering abortion clinics across the state. The Texas provision would
have forced more than half of the state’s remaining abortion clinics,
which fail to meet the medical and structural standards required under
H.B.2., to shut their doors.

Signed into law by Governor Rick Perry in July 2013, H.B. 2
effectively reduced the state’s abortion rate and cut the number of
Texas abortion clinics from 40 to 19. The provision, which was set to go
into effect September 1, would have axed the number of abortion clinics
even further–only seven facilities were expected to withstand standards
that would have protected women from health risks associated with
botched abortions.

In an opinion, Yeakel said the Lone Star state is at a “tipping
point” in regards to abortion access restrictions, asserting that the
provision would further affect the ability of impoverished or minority
women to obtain an abortion procedure.

“The court is firmly convinced that the State has placed unreasonable
obstacles in the path of a woman’s ability to obtain a previability
abortion,” Yeakel said.
The case is likely to be ultimately heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
During oral arguments earlier this month, pro-abortion proponents
asserted that the final provision would have left areas west or south of
San Antonio without abortion providers; however, state attorneys
contended that there was no evidence to prove that the restrictions
placed an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions.

Portions of H.B.2 protecting pre-born children and women’s health are
currently in effect. Last year, Judge Yeakel sought to block the H.B.2
admitting privilege requirement, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
quickly rebuked the federal judge and reversed his decision. Abortion
providers lost a previous challenge against a H.B.2 provision requiring
abortionists to obtain hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of
an abortion clinic, but Yeakel’s ruling grants two abortion clinics an
exception to the hospital admittance privilege requirement.

“We are disappointed that the court did not uphold House Bill 2 in
its entirety,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for
Life. “This means that beginning Sept. 1, women considering abortion
will not receive all of the protections from threats to their health and
safety that were intended by the Legislature and Governor [Rick]
Perry.”
State attorney general and pro-life advocate, Greg Abbot, vows to
appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

“The state disagrees with the court’s ruling and will seek immediate
relief from the Fifth Circuit,” said Lauren Bean, spokeswoman for Abbot.
The lawsuit against Texas’ abortion restrictions was initiated by the
Center for Reproductive Rights and championed by abortion clinics,
which argue that the law poses medically unnecessary regulations on
abortion providers. However, the H.B. 2 prohibition on abortions after
20 weeks passed uncontested by Planned Parenthood. The late-term
abortion provision of the law protects children who, according to
medical research, feel pain after 20 weeks.

But Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion groups have not remained
quiet in Texas. The abortion giant has been busy filling the coffers of
pro-abortion gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis, who is challenging
Mr. Abbott. The race for Texas governor is set to be a feisty battle in
which Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion groups are deeply invested.

Davis thrust the Texas abortion law into national spotlight last year
after her long filibuster against the legislation made headlines. The
bill stalled, but eventually passed the state Legislature. Abbot,
however, defends H.B. 2, and says the law places no unconstitutional
burden on women seeking abortions. He contends that almost 90 percent of
Texas women of reproductive age would live within 150 miles of an
abortion clinic if the law was fully implemented.

The outcome of the race for governor will determine whether Governor
Perry’s efforts to implement tougher abortion restrictions will remain.

Sister of three aborted babies: “Our grief is real”

Sara is one of many siblings of aborted babies who has struggled with the loss of their family members. She is different from Renee and Donna in that the babies she mourns were her father’s. She answers some questions below:

What were your feelings on abortions before you found out about losing siblings?
I was very pro-choice. I didn’t like that abortion existed, but
understood that it had a place in this world and that it wasn’t my life
and my place to judge another persons’ life, choice or circumstances.

How did you find out about the abortions?
I found out about my brother Jon when I was admiring a picture in my
dad’s house of a hand ( presumably the hand of God) holding a baby. He
and my mom have been divorced since I was very little and he told me
that he got it when his girlfriend from some years back aborted their
son that they were going to name Jon. I was in shock and little more was
said about it. I found out about the twins very causally. We were
painting a bedroom and my dad’s current girlfriend happened to mention
she aborted a set of twins that were his, again I was in shock and
that’s all that was said about the matter.

How has being the sibling of aborted babies affected you?
It’s taken me a while for it to sink in that I’m a sibling of aborted
babies….and to accept and own that grief. it seems a lot of resources
exist when the abortions are because of the mother…but very few
understand what it’s like to be in my shoes. As well as being the
sibling of aborted babies I have 3 babies myself lost to miscarriage and
it’s made me come to terms with aspects of those losses too.

What was it like meeting other siblings of aborted babies?
Meeting Susi/Renee was
amazing. She was the first person I reached out to who didn’t judge me,
she understood that I could accept that abortion was necessarily in
some circumstances ( life of the mother) but also be sad that MY
siblings were aborted .

What has brought you healing?
Being able to collect tangible items for my siblings and being able
to name the twins and have people remember them and their lives with me.

How can the pro-life movement reach out towards people who have lost a sibling to abortion?
Realize that we come from all walks of life….that we can love and
miss our siblings no matter how we feel about abortion as a whole, our
grief is real…..someone is missing from our life through no fault of our
own and we have to work through our own grief process about what
happened and the choice someone else made.

As someone who loves a postabortion family member, how
should the pro-life movement reach out to postabortion women (and men if
applicable)?
If we’re reaching out to you…love us and accept us for who were are
and where we are. I know my father grieves those babies that he never
got a chance to know……I know he would have loved them just as much as I
would have.

Can you give any advice to other siblings?
Reach out….find someone who understands.

Can you give any advice to mothers who may want to tell their surviving children that they aborted their sibling?
Find a quiet place…speak your heart….involve the father if you can so he can tell his story too.

With over 50 million legal abortions
in the years since Roe V. Wade, one can only imagine the suffering that
abortion has caused those who were left behind- the mothers, the
fathers, and the siblings.

Embryonic stem cell research: Setting the record straight

With the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge going around, many people started
talking about how they can’t support ALS because embryonic stem cell
research kills babies. Other people said that it doesn’t matter because
the embryos used for research coming from the IVF process have no hope
of living anyway. And others? They said embryos are hardly people, so
have at it.
There are all sorts of “facts” being thrown around, so let’s set the record straight with some scientific facts.
At the moment of conception, a new, unique DNA is present in that
single cell. This fertilized egg, scientifically called a zygote, is the
beginning of the continuum of human life. All that needs to happen from
this point on is for the zygote to have nourishment to grow. Eventually
it will become an embryo, then a fetus, and eventually after birth an
infant and adult. Check out fetal development facts here.

But some would say it’s not a person. A zygote certainly doesn’t look
very much like a person. But being born doesn’t magically make us human
beings. Developing toenails doesn’t magically make us human beings. It
makes sense to say that the moment of our beginning – fertilization – is
the beginning of our existence.
Okay, embryos might be human. But since stem cells are all taken from
the IVF process, they have no hope of developing into people anyway.
Right? So we should make use of them!
The fact is that stem cells can be taken taken from more than embryos
in the IVF process. We’ve gotten them from adults. They also have been
found in amniotic fluid, and the umbilical cord. Many people throw
around the idea that embryonic stem cells come from purposefully aborted
embryos, but there’s a lot of research to be done on this topic. In
2009, the National Institute of Health released Guidelines on Human Stem Cell Research which
allows funding for stem cell research on embryos from IVF. It also
allows embryos to be donated in compliance with certain regulations.
I found that it’s not intellectually honest to say that all this
research is happening on aborted babies. In fact, much of it is on
embryos from IVF procedures. Why? Because the cells needed for research
are best harvested at the blastocyst stage of development: about 5-6
days after fertilization when the embryo has developed into about 100
cells with an inner cell mass of 10-20 undifferentiated cells.
So enough of the scientific jargon. Why the focus on embryonic stem cells?

Embryonic stem cells are what we call pluripotent which means they
can be programmed to become any cell except egg or sperm. Adult stem
cells are naturally multipotent which means they can be programmed to
become a different cell of a similar type. For example, an adult stem
cell from bone marrow could be programmed into a blood cell.

Initially most people, including scientists saw more value in
embryonic stem cell research over adult. Why? Because there is allegedly
more potential with embryonic stem cells, especially looking at the
natural state of adult vs. embryonic. But is there really more potential
with embryonic stem cell research? Is it necessary to fund it with
millions of dollars? Take a look at the recent developments in the
embryonic/adult stem cell research saga:

Embryonic stem cells pose many risks: growing
irregularly or specializing in different cell types
spontaneously, might trigger an immune response in which the recipient’s
body attacks the stem cells as foreign invaders, or simply fail to function normally, with unknown consequences

If you believe the scientific fact of human life existing before
birth, then we have come to a dilemma: do we have to end lives to do
research to protect lives? Well, it’s a foggy situation, you might say.
How about this: If it’s okay to sacrifice some life to research to save
other lives, why don’t we have people with disabilities give their lives
to research? How about people who are depressed and don’t want to live
anymore? How about a “normal” person be electively chosen to die for
research? If it’s for the purpose of saving other people, isn’t that
okay?
Hopefully your answer is “no”. It’s not okay to have a person killed in the same of scientific research.
And after doing research myself, it’s clear that stem cell research
is not as simple as people say it is. However, it’s incredibly exciting
with all the potential.

Adult stem cells have demonstrated incredible potential as the
articles I linked to have shown. Embryonic stem cell research, on the
other hand, has not had a major breakthrough lately that I was able to
find.

It’s time we look at the facts. If you want to support stem cell
research that’s actually making a difference, I recommend you support the JPII Medical Research Institute
which focuses on “the most ethical and cost-effective way of conducting
medical research to help develop therapies and cures for a variety of
diseases.”

Saturday, August 30, 2014

CNN explains why a woman should tell her OB-GYN she has had an abortion

By Dave AndruskoAs
they say, imagine my surprise. A friend recently posted a link on
Facebook to a story that ran (as it turns out) several years ago–“5 secrets you shouldn’t keep from your GYN”—that had a remarkable truth not ordinarily seen on the “mainstream media.”

Elizabeth Cohen, described as a CNN Senior Medical Correspondent,
began with a series of horror stories revolving around the unwillingness
of women to tell their OB-GYN certain sensitive (or, seemingly, not so
sensitive) information.

Cohen does a good job of discussing subject areas you might not
necessarily think of—or would assume women would routinely reveal—before
getting to #4: “Whether you’ve had an abortion.” (The “Rankin” in the
following quote is Dr. Lissa Rankin, a gynecologist in Mill Valley,
California.)

“People who’ve had abortions
sometimes worry about saying so if they know their doctor is pro-life,
or if they don’t know where their doctor stands on the issue,” Rankin
says. While it’s understandable to have that worry, it’s medically
important to tell your doctor if you’ve had abortions.

Why it matters: If you’re infertile,
it’s important for your doctor to know about past abortions for two
reasons. One, it indicates that at least in one point in your life, you
were fertile and “the plumbing works,” Rankin says.

Secondly, the infertility might be caused by infection or scar tissue that resulted from the abortion, she adds.

Also, multiple abortions could put you at a higher risk for miscarriage or premature birth, she says.

Finally, if you’re about to have
surgery on your cervix or uterus, your doctor needs to know about prior
abortions, as scar tissue might make the surgery more difficult.

Wow! How many times have experts—and by no means necessarily
pro-life—tried to get these truths across?! Abortion is an unnatural
assault on a woman’s reproductive system. There can be, and are, a host
of complications.

They include what Cohen talked about but many others as well,
including a substantially elevated risk of a premature delivery. This
“seriously threatens the lives and health of newborn children,” writes
Paul Stark. “The risk of premature delivery increases with each
additional abortion.” In addition, abortion is “also associated with an
increased risk of infertility, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and
placenta previa.”

Planned Parenthood Raising Money for Big Push in Fall Elections

By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL Director of Education & Research

Wendy Davis and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards

Faced with clinic closings and legislative defeats, Planned
Parenthood’s political arm (Planned Parenthood Action Fund) is in the
process of spending $16 million in this fall’s races. To gin up
contributions, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards has sent out
a fiery but fact-challenged appeal fundraising letter to would-be
supporters.
This massive political involvement may come as somewhat of a surprise
to those who imagine Planned Parenthood to be just a “women’s health
care provider,” the image PPFA so carefully cultivates. But, in fact,
the nation’s largest abortion performer and promoter has also long been
one of the biggest players on the political scene, spending millions to
put politicians in office who will defend the killing of unborn babies
and keep the taxpayer dollars flowing their way.
Ironically, while Richards opens with the statement “This has got to stop. Politics has no place in women’s health care[,]” Planned Parenthood then spends the rest of the letter detailing why folks need to send “a generous contribution of $50, $75, $100, $500 or more” to aid in “changing the political landscape,” to “protect the pro-women’s health majority in the U.S. Senate”
(“because the Senate approves Supreme Court nominees, we can prevent
the Court from tilting further away from women’s rights”), to “show the power of women’s votes by electing candidates who support women’s health care and Planned Parenthood and defeating those who don’t.”
While there are the usual “sky is falling” pleas about access to
birth control and threats to “women’s health care,” it is significant to
note that in the four page letter, “abortion” appears no less than 16
times. Several of these are in complaints about “anti-abortion groups,”
“protesters,” or “extremists,” and their actions thwarting Planned
Parenthood’s agenda. But others make Planned Parenthood’s profound
abortion commitment more explicit.
One of their biggest complaints is about “irrational and often
dangerous laws” such as “abortion restrictions” in North Carolina,
“so-called patient safety laws” in Virginia, required “counseling” and
waiting periods in South Dakota, limits imposed by a state medical board
on “telemedicine” (web-cam) abortions in Iowa, and a new Ohio law
requiring abortionists to have “special agreements with local hospitals”
(e.g., transfer agreements, admitting privileges which is an
increasingly common and necessary requirement ).
Absent from the letter, of course, is anything about the filthy and
dangerous conditions discovered at clinics like Planned Parenthood’s
Wilmington, Delaware facility, women who’ve died after taking abortion
drug RU-486 at Planned Parenthood clinics, or videos showing how some
Planned Parenthood counselors ignore or evade informed consent, parental
involvement, or statutory rape reporting laws.
Under the circumstances, it seems like it would be “rational” to
assume that the more “dangerous” course for women would be to let
Planned Parenthood continue to operate its abortion mills unregulated.
In the letter, Richards holds up two states as examples of what Planned Parenthood has done and will do.
Planned Parenthood offers Virginia as proof that “We know how to win for women.”
Without directly mentioning the cool million that Planned Parenthood
put into ads in the closing days of last year’s very close gubernatorial
campaign, Richards says that “we reached out all across the political
spectrum, explaining the stakes to women and making it clear which
candidate would protect their health and rights – and which would not.”
Unsaid is how Planned Parenthood manipulated and distorted
perceptions of women in the Commonwealth, making it sound like the
pro-life Republican candidate wanted to take away women’s birth control
and cancer screenings, neither of which were remotely true.
Although carried along by a compliant media and buoyed by a vast
superiority in campaign funds, Terry McAuliffe, the PPFA-backed
pro-abortion Democrat , won by just 2.5%. Planned Parenthood says that “women’s votes made all the difference,”
and though there were obviously other factors in play, exit polls did
show that young single women – the target constituency for Planned
Parenthood’s misleading ads – did go heavily for the Democrat.
While the previous pro-life Republican administration in Virginia had
been able to put in place some of the badly needed clinic regulations
Planned Parenthood complained about, Richards noted that “the new
governor we helped elect has beat back attacks on women’s health care and is working to expand access to affordable birth control, cancer screenings, and safe, legal abortion.” (No mention of making abortion “rare.”)
There hasn’t been much in the press about the McAuliffe’s efforts to
expand “cancer screenings” at Planned Parenthood, but Townhall.com did
feature the following headline on its May 14, 2014 website:
“‘Bankrolled’ by Planned Parenthood, McAuliffe pushes looser abortion
rules clinic rules.”
The other state featured in Planned Parenthood’s fundraising letter
is Texas. Richards declares “In my home state of Texas, for example,
the governor and the legislature pulled every trick in the book to push
through a wildly unpopular law that fully implemented could close all
but a handful of women’s health facilities, leaving hundreds of
thousands of women with nowhere to turn for care.”
(For all the handwringing about closing clinics, it should be noted
that two Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates have already announced
plans to open giant new abortion megaclinics in Dallas and San Antonio
intended to be fully compliant with the new law. They, too, are using
the passage of the new laws as part of their pitch for new funds.)
In that one sentence from Richards there are numerous errors and misstatements that need deconstructing. Here are just a few.
The law may have been “wildly unpopular” in Planned Parenthood’s
circles and among the throngs they bused in from all over the country,
but it passed handily among Texas’ elected representatives (male and
female) and was signed by a governor Texans returned to office three
times.
The law’s focus was not on closing “women’s health facilities” but on
halting abortions on pain-capable unborn children; requiring
abortionists to follow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s
prescribing protocol for RU-486; ensuring that abortionists would have
hospital admitting privileges so they could accompany women who had
suffered complications; and placing safeguards on previously poorly
regulated abortion clinics.
As long as they did not perform abortions or met the commonsense
requirements, the centers were unaffected. If clinics closed, it was
due to their insistence on offering abortions without needed safeguards
for women, not due to any effort by legislators to conspire against
women needing health care.
Richards does take the opportunity to promote Planned Parenthood’s
latest “feminist icon,” gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, the state
Senator who led a “heroic 11-hour filibuster” of a pro-life law that
eventually passed anyway. The letter manages not to mention that in
opposing HB 2, Davis was, among other things, defending late abortions.
Richards described the pro-abortion mob that descended on Austin during
the filibuster as part of a “grassroots uproar against the reckless new
law” that Planned Parenthood called “the most inspiring fight for
women’s health we’ve seen in years.”
Put that in context of plans already announced by Planned Parenthood
to spend $3 million in Texas elections in 2014 to elect Davis and other
key pro-abortion candidates.
Planned Parenthood says that

“Now in 2014, we need more boots on the ground. We need more trained activists engaging in direct voter contact, face-to-face, aboutwhat these elections mean in terms of safe, legal abortion… We need women to understand how much their vote matters – to themselves, their daughters, and to women all across the country who are having a hard time getting the care they need.”

The message of the letter is clear. Planned Parenthood is going to
be raising and spending lots of money in this fall’s election, peddling
myths about threats to women’s health to get voters to the polls and to
defend, fund, and expand their abortion empire

Gallup finds Obama’s ‘Strong Disapproval’ is now twice as large as his ‘Strong Approval’

By Dave AndruskoThe
last two times we’ve posted on President Obama’s rocky approval ratings
as measured by Gallup, several kind readers politely suggested that my
suggestion—that the President’s approval numbers could dip several more
points, if not more—couldn’t be true. The President’s baseline
supporters, my correspondents said, would never, ever give up.
Of course, I beg to differ. Just check events of the past 24 hours
and ask yourself if Mr. Obama’s approval numbers seem primed to take
another hit.
On a very much related note, here’s something else from Gallup, a follow up to the post we wrote yesterday about how Republicans and Independents are much more likely to be “thinking” about the November elections than are Democrats.
Unlike yesterday’s Gallup headline, this one sugarcoats nothing:
“Obama’s ‘Strong Disapproval’ Double His ‘Strong Approval’: Republicans
are more likely to strongly disapprove now than in 2010.”
The key, obviously, is not that three in four Republicans strongly
disapprove. No, it’s the overall numbers and the downward trend. As
Justin McCarthy wrote

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans are more
than twice as likely to say they “strongly disapprove” (39%) of
President Barack Obama’s job performance as they are to say they
“strongly approve” (17%). The percentage of Americans who strongly
disapprove of Obama has increased over time, while the percentage who
strongly approve has dropped by almost half.

In the first year of Obama’s
presidency, the percentages of Americans who had strong views about the
job he was doing were essentially tied, but the strongly negative
responses now significantly outweigh the strongly positive ones. The
largest segment of Americans today, 39%, strongly disapprove of Obama’s
job performance, while 14% moderately disapprove. Another 27% moderately
approve, while 17% strongly approve.

Which is not to say the Republicans’ passionate (and growing)
disapproval of Mr. Obama does not have enormous implications for
November 4.
The Gallup poll story we discussed yesterday offered a theory why the
impact of much greater interest (“thinking” about the election) might
be exaggerated. McCarthy’s story, by contrast, does not minimize the
potential impact on turnout:

Since 2009, a majority of Republicans
have strongly disapproved of Obama’s performance, ranging between 58%
and 75%. Gallup has not asked this intensity question frequently, but in
its recent Aug. 7-10 poll, this percentage jumped 13 points from the
January 2011 measure, suggesting that extreme dissatisfaction among the
president’s opposing party is higher than it has ever been.

Notably, Republicans are even
more likely to say they strongly disapprove of Obama now than in 2010, a
year when a tide of anti-Obama sentiments led to major Democratic
losses in the House and Senate in that year’s midterm election.
Part of that increase may be attributable to the passage of time, in
that Republicans are simply more solid in their views of Obama six years
into his presidency than two years in. But those strong
negative views of Obama could boost Republican turnout this fall when
the Democratic majority in the Senate is in peril. [Emphasis added.]

What would make this situation even worse for Mr. Obama and his
fellow Democrats? Obviously, if enthusiasm among Democrats is waning.
And that’s exactly what Gallup found.

[W]hereas Democrats were nearly three
times as likely to strongly approve as moderately approve of Obama in
2009, the ratio is now about 1-to-1.

What’s the final thing that could go wrong for President Obama and,
by extension, Senate Democrats running for re-election this fall? A
falloff among Independents.
According to McCarthy, 39% of Independents strongly disapprove, a number which, comparatively, has been consistent.

However this is not the case with those who strongly approve.

In previous years, one in five or
more independents (19% to 23%) strongly approved of the president’s
performance. In 2014, however, the percentage of independents who
strongly approve has shrunken to 11%.

That is tremendous drop-off in strong approval: from 19%/23% down to a mere 11%!
More on Monday.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Aborting a down syndrome baby because he can’t go to Cornell?

Editor’s note. This appeared at clinicquotes.com.
One father, a computer technologist, said the following about what he would think if the baby turned out to have Down’s:

“I’m sorry to say that I just
couldn’t accept that. I mean, I’ve worked hard to get where I am, I
worked hard at Cornell. And I want the same for my child. I want to
teach my child, and have him learn. Maybe it’s unfortunate, maybe I
should be more accepting. But I don’t want a child with retardation.”

Later, in the same book, he said:

“I’m sorry to say I couldn’t think
about raising a child with Down’s. I’m something of a perfectionist. I
want the best for my child. I’ve worked hard, I went to Cornell
University, I’d want that for my child. I’d want to teach him things he
couldn’t absorb. I’m sorry I can’t be more accepting, but I’m clear I
wouldn’t want to continue the pregnancy.” [1]

He and his partner were having amniocentesis done with the plan to abort the baby if he or she had down syndrome.
[1] Rayna Rapp “Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: the Social Impact
of Amniocentesis in America” (New York: Routledge, 1999) 90, 133 – 134

Scarlett Johansson fails logic

Despite
my esteemed background in high school drama (I starred in several
productions), I don’t critique acting, except over the water cooler. I
don’t have a clue what it takes to make a movie, let alone make a movie
well. I assume Scarlett Johansson does, as she’s made a number of them.
But clearly, Ms. Johansson doesn’t do so well with logic.

Ms. Johansson has designed t-shirts for Planned Parenthood. The hot
pink t’s feature a cartoon male on the front, along with “Hey
Politicians! The 1950s called…”; the back reads, “They want their sexism
back!” Ms. Johansson stated her reason for wanting to be part of this project:

When I heard that some politicians were cheering the Supreme Court’s
decision to give bosses the right to interfere in our access to birth
control, I thought I had woken up in another decade,” explained
Johansson in a statement.
“Like many of my friends, I was appalled by the thought of men taking
away women’s ability to make our own personal health care decisions,”
she added.

Oh. Dear. I don’t like men or anyone else taking away my ability to
make decisions about my health care either, so I guess we have that in
common. That’s about as far as it goes. Ms. Johansson: What men? Where?
How are they doing this? Is this some vast right-wing conspiracy?
The last time I checked, pretty much anybody can walk into any
drugstore in America and plunk down cash for condoms or Plan B. Most
large pharmacies sell a month’s supply of birth control pills for about
ten bucks. And Planned Parenthood keeps telling us they’ll give birth control to
anyone who asks. There are no men stopping anyone from buying these
items. (Also, just so we are crystal clear: abstinence costs nothing.)

Ms. Johansson seems to believe that if an employer does not pay for
something, you can’t have it. That, my dear, is faulty logic. While I
understand that in Hollywood, there are many perks that come with the
job of acting (for instance, the swag bag for the 2014 Emmy Awards included
a luxury hotel spa treatment, a $600 smart phone, and jewelry, along
with other goodies), a boss can offer his or her employees whatever
perks and salary he or she wishes. The employee can then accept the job
or not. However, if the boss does not offer employees a company car, for
instance, that does not mean you can’t get a car. It just means you’ll
have to buy one yourself.

And this is not sexism, Ms. Johansson. It is business and ethics. A
boss may not be able to afford to buy all of her employees a car, so she
doesn’t do so. A boss may choose not to offer health insurance that
pays for abortions, because it violates her conscience. In neither
instance do you lose your ability to get those things. And frankly,
claiming that it is sexism makes women sound a wee bit weak and whiny (“But, but, how will I ever get birth control pills now??”)
Ms. Johansson, we women are better than this.

Many more Republicans and Independents than Democrats thinking about upcoming elections

By Dave AndruskoLet’s
put three items together and see what they might tell us about the
political lay of the land with 68 days to go until the November 4
mid-term elections.
First, today’s Gallup approval/disapproval numbers for President
Barack Obama: 40%/54%. Realistically, it would be hard to conjure up a
scenario where 40% approval becomes 43%, let alone 45%. But it would
equally easy to see 54% disapproval become 56% or even 58%.
The President’s numbers can likely only grow worse. This is baggage that already vulnerable Senate Democrats can ill afford.
Second, what Gallup yesterday headlined as “Republicans’ ‘Thought’ to
2014 Election Exceeds Democrats.” Everyone has known for months and
months that Republicans are much more motivated than Democrats. And
while “thinking” about an electorate [either “quite a lot” or “some” ]
cannot simply be extrapolated out as a firm predictor of actual turnout,
it’s an awfully good indicator.
Here’s Jeffrey M. Jones’s opening paragraph

PRINCETON, NJ — One in three
Americans (33%) say they have given “quite a lot” or “some” thought to
the 2014 midterm election, up from 26% in April. Importantly,
Republicans (42%) are much more engaged than Democrats (27%) in the
election at this point.

(BTW, obviously the headline should have read something along the
lines of Republicans being “much more engaged” than Democrats. But…)
As Jones notes, it only stands to reason that just as more Americans
are thinking about the elections than did in April, still more will as
we approach November 4. Implications?
One would be, “If there is no significant narrowing of the
Republican-Democratic thought gap between now and Election Day, the
Republican advantage in turnout could surpass that on Election Day
2010.”
Or as Jones elaborates

“Democrats need strong turnout to
minimize the potential seat losses in Congress that occur in nearly
every midterm election for the president’s party. But with Republicans
much more engaged in the election at this point than Democrats — and by
one of the larger margins in recent midterm election years — the odds of
strong Democratic turnout seem low, suggesting 2014 could be a good
year for Republicans. Even if the Republican advantage narrows
considerably by Election Day, as seen in 2010, Republicans seem poised
to have the upper hand in turnout.”

He also makes this…interesting comment:

“To some degree, the Democratic
deficit in election thought may reflect not just their turnout
intentions but also their beliefs about the likelihood their party will
perform well in the election. From that standpoint, the measure may
overstate the Republican advantage in potential turnout this year.”

Is Jones saying that Democrats are thinking less about the election
than Republicans now but will think more about it as November 4
approaches ? Because even if they are not as optimistic as Republicans
they will turn out anyway? How does that follow?
What about Republicans? Is Jones saying the turnout advantage may be
exaggerated because the “thinking about” advantage Republicans enjoy now
is at least partially because they believe the GOP will do well in
November? That this “good feeling” is just that–a feeling, and won’t be
reflected in actually voting patterns? Why?

If you’re a Republican and you feel good now about November; and if
you continue to “think about” the election; and your party’s prospects
continue to look very good, why wouldn’t you be highly motivated to
vote? What about the Republicans whose attention to the election hasn’t
kicked in yet?
Moreover, given how poorly the President is faring among
Independents, if I was a Democrat running in the fall, it would make me
very nervous that the percentage of Independents thinking “quite a lot”
or “some” about the election has increased by nine points since
April—from 23% to 32%.
Third, with Democrats floundering, they are testing any number of
themes in hopes of finding one that will resonate. Naturally, the common
denominator is to portray Republicans as “extremists” on [fill in the
blank].

The difficulty is, as Hotair’s Noah Rothman wrote,

“In 2014, it is the Democratic Party’s turn to field a slate of weak, untested, and gaffe-prone candidates.”

It’s only one state but Montana will always be remembered for how the
situation for Democrats went from bad to worse to impossibly bad.
Rothman wrote

“In Montana, where Democrats
originally sought to rescue their electoral prospects by replacing a
weak incumbent with a fresh face, the party’s hopes utterly imploded
when that fresh face proved to be a serial plagiarizer. His ultimate
replacement, chosen by the party at convention, is a self-described
anarcho-socialist.”

Canadian Cowardly Head Doc’s Hand-Wringing OK for Assisted Suicide

By Wesley J. Smith

Dr. Chris Simpson, the new president of the Canadian Medical Association

This is how the culture of death advances. A clueless, or cowardly–or
both–authority figure says he or she is against assisted suicide except
as a very last resort when everything else has been tried.
Never mind that medicalized killing has never been so limited
anywhere assisted suicide/euthanasia is legal. Never. Ever. Nowhere.

Not Oregon. Not Washington. Not the Netherlands. Not Belgium. Not anywhere on planet earth.
But saying that it is OK, if limited to a very last resort when
everything that can be conjured by the minds of medical science has
failed allows a surrender with seeming principle.
That’s the kind of abjection now pushed by the head of the Canadian
Medical Association (CMA), Dr. Chris Simpson. From the Canada.com story:

Doctor-hastened death would only be
appropriate after all other reasonable choices have been exhausted, says
the head of the country’s largest doctors’ group. Dr. Chris Simpson,
newly installed president of the Canadian Medical Association, made the
comments in advance of a landmark Supreme Court of Canada hearing
expected to add fuel to the emotional end-of-life debate gaining urgency
across Canada.

Simpson said there are enough doctors
in Canada willing to perform doctor-hastened death, if the federal ban
outlawing euthanasia were lifted.

But doctors first need safeguards to
protect the vulnerable and a strategy to urgently shore up palliative
care “so that this is not seen as a first, or second or even third
choice, but a choice that’s appropriate for people after all other
reasonable options are exhausted,” he said.

I have zero respect for this argument. Zero. Better to advocate for outright legalization than engage in this cowardly charade.

The “last resort” justification is a hiding place for those without
sufficient guts or principle–either to admit they are for assisted
suicide or who don’t have the bone marrow to stand against it and be
accused of lacking compassion.
Reading the balance of the article, it seems that Simpson comes in the former category.
More proof of my thesis:

Simpson, who will be appearing before the Supreme Court, said that
the CMA will be neither “pro nor con” and that as long as euthanasia and
doctor-assisted death remain illegal “we’ll be advising our members not
to participate in it.”
Should the legal landscape change, “Our new policy will be to allow
physicians to follow their conscience” within the confines of the law.
How can a medical association be NEUTRAL about legalizing doctor prescribed death?

Moreover, that statement completely belies the “last resort” pretense. No principles.Editor’s note. This appeared at Wesley’s great blog.

“Pro-Choice,” “Pro-toys,” and “Do-It-Yourself Abortions”

By Dave Andrusko

Ruby Rae Spiegel

So the headline in the New York Times reads “Young, Fearless and Not Into Dragons: Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Play ‘Dry Land’ Confronts Abortion.”
You know the Times would drool over any play about abortion (unless,
of course, the mother chooses not to abort). Add to this that the
playwright is a recently turned 21 senior at Yale and Laura
Collins-Hughesaug is already primed to be practically ecstatic. But
there’s more.

Spiegel’s play is about a young girl who has a DIY (Do It Yourself)
abortion, the ultimate expression of “liberation.” And, for good measure
(sort of), her real-life father is a former member of the Weather
Underground and her mother (once her parents divorced) “filled the rooms
of their Park Slope, Brooklyn, brownstone with feminist academics.”
There are hints about the play’s content, but for more I went to an interview Spiegel gave to Adam Szymkowicz.

The more emotional core of the play
came from a feeling that I had about a year and a half ago after I had
had sex with someone that I liked, but wasn’t particularly close with,
and was afraid that I had become pregnant. That intense feeling of
aloneness, that the problem affected me and only me and that it resided
in my body, literally on my person, was really startling and stuck in my
mind for a while after the possibility of pregnancy was a material
concern. The final puzzle piece was when I read an article in The New
Republic called “The Rise of the DIY Abortion,” and I saw theatrical
potential in the kind of intimate bodily acts that are demanded of you
if you attempt to abort a fetus non-surgically. Also from a political
standpoint I found it interesting that articles that detail these
realities are somewhat common, but seeing them embodied is somehow too
close to that experience. Of course many women do embody that reality,
so maybe showing it on stage could be a kind of radical form of empathy
for that surprisingly common, yet often silence experience. So bringing
those pieces together, the aesthetic interest in pools [she spent much
of her childhood swimming], the personal emotional connection, and the
interesting political and theatrical story I saw in the article, created
the groundwork for the play as it stands now.

Spiegel’s fortunes are on the rise. Her play will have its premiere
September 6 in a Colt Coeur production, at the Here Arts Center in the
South Village.
We learn Colt Coeur’s artistic director, Adrienne Campbell-Holt,
“said she knew as soon as she read the script that she needed to direct
the play.”

“Abortion is something that I have
personal experience with, that many of the people in the company have
personal experience with,” said Ms. Campbell-Holt, who is 34. “I have
never had as immediate a reaction to a play as I had to this play.”

Without being specific [aka graphic], Collins-Hughesaug tells us

“When ‘Dry Land’ was staged by
students at Yale last semester, Ms. Spiegel said, audiences were warned
that the play contains violence. A young woman fainted anyway, she said,
and a man in the front row spent an entire performance rubbing the
belly of his pregnant girlfriend. Another young man told Ms. Spiegel the
play inspired him to call his mother to ask about the abortion she had
in college.”

I don’t know Spiegel and I don’t know her mother, although the
temptation to conclude she was deeply influenced by her mother is hard
to avoid. Especially if you happen to have read another interview
Spiegel gave, this one to Rebecca Deutsch.
Deutsch asked her, “Tell me a story from your childhood that influenced who you are as a writer or as a person.”

This story actually kind of relates
to the subject of DRY LAND. So my mom brought me to a pro-choice rally
when I was like four or five, and I was pretty bored at first— it was
crowded and loud and not the most kid friendly place. But about halfway
through I perked up and started chanting along with the crowd. My mom
was so proud—they were chanting, “What do we want? Choice! When do we
want it? Now!” I was halving a blast, shouting at the top of my lungs,
and then my mom put me on her shoulders. She soon realized that I wasn’t
actually shouting the real words. I was yelling, “What do we want?
Toys! When do we want them? Now!” (I thought it was a pro-toys rally.)

This relates on tangentially to my
writing— but I misspell almost every other word I write (I’m pretty
dyslexic) and I’ve found that some kind of wonderful things actually
come out of it. Spell-check thinks that I mean a different word, and
oftentimes I end up keeping the misunderstanding because it was actually
better than the word I first intended. Not that a pro-toys rally is
better than a pro-choice rally, but you get what I mean!

Yes, we get what you mean. A pro-toys rally might suggest we have
kids to give toys to. And, no, you would not expect a pro-choice rally
to be the most kid friendly place.
It took me a while to track down but the New Republic article Spiegel is referring to involves Jennie Linn McCormack, about whom we have written many times.

McCormack self-aborted in 2010 using unspecified abortifacient pills
purchased over the Internet when she was between 18 and 21 weeks
pregnant. Just two things besides the obvious fact that ordering
abortifacients from the Internet is unbelievably dangerous.

First, even the zaniest pro-abortionist is leery about using RU-486
(the likely abortifacient) much past 9 weeks, certainly not past 11
weeks. Using it a couple of months later in her pregnancy was dangerous
to Ms. McCormack, who has three living children.

Second, according to a story in Newsweek written by Nancy
Hass, when she saw the size of the baby, McCormack was scared, “She
didn’t know what to do—‘I was paralyzed,’ she says—so she put it in a
box on her porch, and, terrified, called a friend. That friend then
called his sister, who reported McCormack to the police.”

How Spiegel can find in McCormack’s bizarre behavior material for
“interesting political and theatrical story” which stirred in her a
“radical form of empathy” leaves me speechless.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

WaPo Blogger: Abortion Is ‘A Deeply Affirmative Value’

By Katie Yoder

Carter Eskew

In a piece for The Washington Post, blogger Carter Eskew recently argued, “It’s time for a new dialogue on abortion.”

Eskew, director at The Glover Park Group (which lobbies for Planned
Parenthood) and former strategist for Al Gore, wrote in response to his
colleague Janet Harris, who insisted abortion is never immoral or
“difficult.” “Control over one’s reproduction is a deeply affirmative
value,” he approved, and “It’s time to assert it.”
Citing Harris, Eskew affirmed, “She couldn’t be more right” and
added, “the current political dialogue is even worse than she
documents.” “The pro-choice movement,” he lamented, “has been on the
defensive” while the pro-life movement is “chipping away at a woman’s
freedom.”
Abortion advocates “can’t and won’t win,” he continued, “because they don’t have an affirmative argument.”

But, surprisingly, Eskew got one thing right: “The problem is
‘choice’ will never trump ‘life.’ Choice is valuable, but life is
precious. As long as there is no competing affirmative value for
abortion, then life will always win.”

That sentiment quickly disappeared as Eskew found his fix: the
“small, brave cohort of women” who “affirm the positive value of
abortion in their own lives” for “abortion rights, centered on not just
freedom of ‘choice’ but on the benefits of the outcome of choice.”
While “the right to control one’s body [which, you know, includes any
other body within it] is basic,” he explained, “it remains abstract.”
He continued, “More concrete are personal benefits, such as waiting
until one is willing and able to care for a child, and societal
benefits” for women, including finishing school and entering the
workforce.

Convenience, in other words. Think of killing your child as a
time-management tool – maybe even a handy app that gets you through your
busy schedule with a minimum of hassle.
As far as the “safe, legal and rare” argument, Eskew complained
abortion advocates, “might as well wave the white flag because implicit
in this formulation is that abortion is bad and shameful.” Whelp, at
least he has the media to back him up (see: The Daily Beast, The
Guardian, Salon – and even the nets).

He concluded by comparing abortion to “gay rights.” “For years,” he
cried, “the public dialogue on gays did not comport with the private
reality” and “The laws treated homosexuality as deviant, when it was
common; as shameful, when it was human.”
“The gap between repression and reality was bound to be breached,” he
finished, and “the same evolution looms on the abortion issue.”
Except that this “repression” is connected to the “reality:” abortion
terminates the lives of the most vulnerable – or, in his own words,
“Choice is valuable, but life is precious.”Editor’s note. This appeared at newsbusters.org

Steven Brigham no more an abortion “outlier” than Kermit Gosnell

By Dave Andrusko

Abortionist Steven Brigham

What do you do if you are a pillar of the more-more-more abortion
brain trust when you have an abortionist whose conduct is outlandish
even by your ever-forgiving standards? You distance yourself from the
man’s behavior, you minimize the gravity of his offenses, and
(naturally) blame pro-lifers!
You remember how the Abortion Establishment tap-danced around
thrice-convicted murderer abortionist Kermit Gosnell? Barely heard of
the guy and if “rogue abortion providers” like Gosnell exist, it’s
because of “anti-choicers.”.

How’s that? We make it uncomfortable for them by “stigmatizing”
abortion, meaning some the brightest and the best choose not to rip
babies limb from limb.
But Gosnell is not an “outlier” or “renegade” as Planned Parenthood
et al. insisted, as we have discussed countless times over the decades.
Perhaps at the head of the class, the valedictorian of malevolence, is
Steven Brigham.

It would be difficult—almost impossible—to exaggerate how shady this
guy is. But Brigham is equally shifty and has taken advantage of lax
abortion laws and weak-kneed licensing boards who can never quite seem
to take his license away permanently.
On Monday, we posted about Brigham’s latest day in court (“N.J. judge moves to permanently revoke abortionist Steven Brigham’s license,”). New Jersey authorities are trying yet again to take away his license, having failed in the 1990s.

Very briefly, Brigham would dilate a woman’s cervix in his Voorhees
,New Jersey, abortion clinic but deliver the dead child in another state
(in this case, Maryland) where babies could legally be aborted much
later than in New Jersey This multi-state practice only came to light
when women were seriously hurt, as was the case with a teenager who
almost died in 2010.

Judge Jeff S. Masin’s decision to yank Brigham’s license will be
reviewed by New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners. Here’s hoping he does
not slip-slide his way out of this one.

But how does a prominent pro-abortion site, such as
Rhrealitycheck.org, handle “South Jersey-based abortion provider Steven
Brigham, who has spent much of his two-decade career fighting charges of
misconduct and negligence,” as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Marie McCullough described him? Well…

“Brigham has a troubling past, and
has been under investigation by state authorities for medical practices
that have pushed the boundaries of ethics and the law.”

Not exactly full-disclosure or a full picture. Not even close

Convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell

In a long, long piece pro-abortion reporter Holly Otterbein, writing for the [Philadelphia] City Paper,
complained that “Brigham, like Gosnell, has overseen abortion
procedures in Pennsylvania for decades. Like Gosnell, he’s run afoul of
the law — throughout his career, in fact.” That’s an understatement, if
ever there was one.

A while back McCullough did a long piece on Brigham, complete with a timeline.
In 1992, a few years out of medical school, Brigham “voluntarily
forfeits his Pennsylvania medical license to end an investigation into
his Wyomissing clinic,” according to McCullough. “The landlord had
successfully sued him for concealing his plans to perform abortions.
Two years later, she wrote, Brigham lost his New York State license
for “botching late-term abortions, one begun in Voorhees. Brigham was
described as ‘undertrained’ with ‘submarginal abilities.’” American
Women’s Services, Brigham’s Voorhees-based company, has abortion clinics
in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Florida.
Brigham has lost his license in five states.”

I suppose that would qualify as “troubled” and “push[ing] the boundaries of ethics and the laws.
What else? We read at Rhrealitycheck.org that

“The decision comes after Masin heard
evidence last year from New Jersey prosecutors showing that Brigham
used a dangerous scheme in which he would begin abortions in New Jersey
and then transfer patients to Maryland to complete the procedure.

“Brigham would induce fetal death in
his Voorhees clinic and would then surgically removed the fetuses at a
clandestine clinic in Elkton, Maryland.”

Wouldn’t this be worth adding about the 18-year-old who almost died in 2010?

“After the woman suffered a ruptured
uterus, state officials said [Brigham’s co-worker Nicol] Riley put the
patient in Brigham’s rented Chevrolet Malibu and drove her Union
Hospital in Elkton,” the Baltimore Sun reported. “The board said she sat
in slumped in a wheelchair, nearly unconscious, outside the emergency
room, while Riley argued with hospital staff, demanding their identities
before treating the woman.

“The woman was flown that day to
Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for more treatment. State officials
said Riley then returned to his clinic in Elkton to perform another
abortion. The injured woman survived.”

Or that the doctor who performed emergency surgery on the teenager
then went to the Elkton police. This led authorities to search Brigham’s
American Woman’s Services abortion clinic which “revealed a freezer
with 35 late-term fetuses inside, including one believed to have been
aborted at 36 weeks, authorities said,” the AP reported

Or, as McCullough wrote, while Maryland never went after Brigham for
illegally practicing medicine, “Instead, the state charged him with
murdering viable fetuses found at the Elkton clinic.” But he wiggled out
of that one too:

“Maryland prosecutors dropped the
charges in 2012, acknowledging that they lacked jurisdiction because the
fetal deaths occurred in New Jersey.”

So in the hands of the pro-abortionists, after a few perfunctory
tsk-tsks, a man who should rate a 10 for his evilness and total
disregard for unborn babies and women gets a 3.
When asked about Brigham, they will site this near-whitewash as evidence they really care.

Watching the Pro-Abortion Movement splinter apart

By Dave Andrusko

Carter Eskew

With great interest and amusement we’ve written about the more
obvious manifestations of the intra-squad squabbles within the
pro-abortion team that went public when Planned Parenthood lowered its
“pro-choice” flag in January 2013.
Some opponents of the move were just nostalgic, others saw it as
giving away a rallying cry that still resonated, still others wondered
if it wasn’t an admission that they had lost control of the political
debate (which they had).

As the pro-abortion movement continues to fragment (it’s already
broken into many shards), there is an ongoing fight over what will be
the new language (the favorites are “reproductive justice” and
“reproductive health”) ; who deserves credit for developing the idiom
and/or promoting it; and how this all ties into the continued widening
of the circle of issues that some pro-abortionists insist must fall
within the rubric of “reproductive justice”/“reproductive health.”
(Hint: you would be surprised. The issues covers everything from soup to
nuts.)

That overlaps with the in-house fighting over who buried the
“pro-choice” slogan first and after-the-fact complaints that it was
never any good in the first place. A recent example of that was the
Washington Post op-ed written by Carter Eskew, a founding partner of the
Glover Park Group public relations firm, which has done a lot of work
for Planned Parenthood. (He got his ears boxed by PPFA for the column,
but that’s another post.)

Eskew celebrated a prior op-ed by Janet Harris who promoted the idea
that it is absurd to ever hint that having an abortion was a “difficult
decision.” Worse, to suggest that abortion does raise ethical and moral
concerns, puts pro-abortionists on the defensive, a theme Eskew hardily
seconds
“The pro-choice side cannot win the debate as it is currently framed;
it can achieve only small victories when the other side overreaches,”
he wrote. “The problem is ‘choice’ will never trump ‘life.’ Choice is
valuable, but life is precious. As long as there is no competing
affirmative value for abortion, then life will always win.”

So what is the “competing affirmative value for abortion,” according to Eskew.

“A small, brave cohort of women have
come forward to affirm the positive value of abortion in their own
lives. Their explanations present a promising, new message frame for
abortion rights, centered on not just freedom of ‘choice’ but on the
benefits of the outcome of choice.”

Sorry, I don’t mean to be dense but isn’t that the argument they have
made for decades? Aborting an inconvenient baby means a woman doesn’t
get slowed down in her race to succeed?
The “difference” in the latest iterations is that, like Janet Harris,
they come across as colder than fish, morally tone-deaf, and utterly
indifferent to the serious qualms most people—including many
self-identified “pro-choicers”—have about abortion, especially abortion
on demand.

So at the same time they expand the number of issues falling under
their “reproductive justice” tent, by their callous language they are
excluding more and more and more Americans.

Surrogate mother of twins awarded one of the babies after biological mother rejects her because of disability

By Dave Andrusko

An unnamed British woman rejected a baby from a surrogate mother because the child was disabled (Picture: PA)

The Sun newspaper in Great Britain has reported that the
biological mother of twins carried by a surrogate allegedly abandoned
one of them when the child was found to have congenital myotonic
dystrophy, a severe muscular condition which affects breathing. The
unidentified woman took the healthy sibling home, Jane Mathews reported.
There is an eerie similarity to the case that occurred just two weeks
ago where a couple allegedly abandoned their surrogate son in Thailand
after he was born with Down syndrome, while taking the healthy twin girl
back with them to Australia.

The Sun referred to the surrogate as “Jenny” to protect her
identity. According to Jenny, the biological mother (who also is
unnamed) responded horribly when she was informed of the girl’s
condition.

“I remember her saying to me, “She’d
be a f****** dribbling cabbage! Who would want to adopt her? No one
would want to adopt a disabled child,’” she said.

In fact, Jenny and her partner would. After mediation, The Children
and Family Court awarded the baby girl with congenital myotonic
dystrophy to Jenny (she will be named Amy), while the baby boy will
remain with the biological mother.

Six weeks before she was due, Jenny underwent an emergency caesarean
to save the babies. The diagnosis of congenital myotonic dystrophy was
not made until after their premature births.
When she called to tell the mother of the girl’s condition, “I’ll
never forget what she said to me on the phone,” Jenny told Mathews. “I
was stunned when I heard her reject Amy.”
Jenny (who has other children of her own) told Mathews, “She had
basically told me that she didn’t want a disabled child.” Jenny added
she felt “very angry” towards the girl’s biological parents.

Alicia
Marie Englert, 23, is led to police car outside her Kearns, Utah home
after allegedly leaving her day-old baby girl in neighbor’s trash can
KUTV

On Tuesday police arrested Alicia Marie Englert on suspicion of
attempted murder , after she reportedly dumped her one-day-old baby in a
neighbor’s trash in Kearns, Utah. Authorities said the baby girl, who
was airlifted to a Salt Lake City hospital, was in critical condition on
a ventilator and fighting for her life.

A Probable Cause statement filed by police said “the birth mother was
afraid to tell her parents about her pregnancy. She said she discarded
the baby in hopes that it would die and solve her problems.”
In an all-too-familiar scenario, a woman found the baby in the trash
bin in the Salt Lake City suburb of Kearns. According to the local CBS
affiliate
“She heard something that sounded like a cat,” says Adora Nemitz who
talked with the neighbors who found the infant. “They told me they found
a baby out of the garbage can. I don’t even talk. I was just shocked.”

Detectives quickly discovered the mother lived next door. Englert
told officers she’d left her baby about an hour before she was found,
authorities said. Englert told police the baby had not received any
medical care or food.

There were no “secondary injuries” to the baby, Salt Lake County
Sheriff Jim Winder said at the news conference. He said there was also
no information about where the baby was born, if others were involved,
or who is the baby’s father.

A woman who claimed to be Englert’s sister told ABC 4 News that her
sister has mental issues and that she did not know she was pregnant.
“She doesn’t think like a 24-year old,” said the woman who wouldn’t offer her name. “She has like some learning disabilities.”

At the same news conference , Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams and
health officials said there are resources available for expectant and
new mothers, including a crisis hotline. They noted that Utah has a law
under which mothers can leave newborns at hospitals, no questions asked.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Willie Parker’s “Abortion Ministry”

By Dave AndruskoEditor’s note. This article appears in the August issue of
National Right to Life News. The edition can be read in its entirety at www.nrlc.org/uploads/NRLNews/NRLNewsAugust2014.pdfIt
is no coincidence that John Richardson’s story in Esquire magazine is
titled, “The Abortion Ministry of Dr. Willie Parker.” Richardson’s
profile is a futile attempt to make a kind of saint out of a man who
flies into Mississippi twice a month and performs as many as 45
abortions a day. (And, yes, that quantity does bring to mind the charges
brought last year by two nurses who once worked at the Wilmington,
Delaware Planned Parenthood clinic–that the clinic performed
‘meat-market style assembly-line abortions.”)

The story is built around the interactions Parker has with the women
intended to reassure them abortion is safe, safe, safe; that the only
opinion that matters is hers; that anyone who disagrees is a
hypocritical Christian; and that aborting women is just an extension of
the ethos that undergirded the Civil Rights Movement. (And, yes, the
latter does remind you of Kermit Gosnell’s similar delusionary
argument.)

Indeed we are told over and over that Parker is a Christian (“I do
abortions because I am a Christian”). Both Parker and Richardson use
that as a defense/justification/explanation for why he aborts and aborts
and aborts some more.
Richardson extends the allusion. Referring to the information
abortionists are required to pass onto women (which Parker mocks and
distorts), Richardson writes, “In an almost priestly cadence, he builds a
sermon around the word required.”

Later, “In all these interactions, even if it has nothing to do with
abortion, Parker never misses a chance to offer comfort. This seems to
be his version of absolution, often delivered with a moral.”
So it would not be unfair to conclude Parker does see himself as a
theologian, one dispensing his own kind of balm, which he calls
“verbicaine.”

The story is very long, so here are a few summary points.
#1. You would easily conclude reading Richardson’s piece that Parker
does not do abortions past the 16th week at all, not just in the state
of Mississippi. In fact, Sarah Kliff, then of the Washington Post, began
a highly sympathetic 2012 interview with Parker, describing him as “a
doctor who has performed late-term abortions.” If you read other
stories, Parker freely acknowledges performing abortions at 24 weeks, 6
days, and beyond.

#2. As noted above, Parker recites information that is important to
women considering abortion, but then immediately makes mash of it. But
Parker’s willingness to bend—actually mutilate—the truth came out in
that interview with Kliff. Here’s just one of the examples NRLC
addressed in responding.
“In his interview with Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post, Dr. Willie
Parker estimated that 1 percent of abortions occur after the first
trimester. This is a gross underestimate. Indeed, in a printed statement
opposing the bill that he posted on the internet, dated May 17, Dr.
Parker himself wrote that ‘roughly 12% of abortions occur at or after 13
weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period,’ citing figures cited by
the CDC. This is 12 times the figure he cited in the interview.”

#3. Women who’ve had chemical abortions often are brutally honest
about what an RU-486 abortion entails. In comparing chemical to surgical
abortions, Parker says only that the “minus” of the former is “heavy
bleeding” and “a return visit in two weeks.” Compare that no-big-deal
summary with the stories of women who’ve bleed for weeks, who can barely
get out of bed, who experience pain they could not even image, “blood
clots the size of golf balls,” and “debilitating, convulsing cramps.”

#4. We’re told that opposition to abortion, ultimately, “comes back
to the early Judeo-Christian narratives that say the fall of man was
caused by a woman, Parker says. ‘That’s woven into our culture, and it
has to be deconstructed at every level.’” So at the end of Richardson’s
story when Parker matter-of-factly points out the aborted baby’s skull
and eyes and the beginnings of a spinal cord, our nausea at this
ultimate act of dehumanization is actually a reflection of how we blame
Eve for everything?

Two other points.

#5. Parker’s “verbicaine” is intended to enable many women to keep
submerged a central truth in their lives that keeps trying to surface:
what they are about to do violates something at their very core. The
most revealing passage in this piece cuts through the nonsense that
Richardson, Parker, and the women hide behind:

A woman named Monique asks if she gets a wish. Sure, Parker says.

“Please tell me that you can’t find it.”

“If only we could wish it away,” he says.

Another woman tries to explain—she just got a promotion; she can’t have a baby now.

“I hear ya. Life is full of those kinds of decisions.”

One scan causes him to pause. “Do you want to know if there is more than one?” he asks.

The woman starts to cry. “No.” She wipes away tears with both hands.

When she leaves, he points to the
screen. Triplets. He’s seen lots of twins but never triplets. Some women
think multiples are more special, so they get more upset.

Yes, I’m sure, “some women” do. Finally

#6. The crux of Parker’s self-delusion—or is it just indifference?—is captured in the conclusion of Richardson’s story:

But here’s the vital question: Is it a
person? Not by the standards of the law, he says. Is it viable outside
the womb? It is not. So this piece of life—and remember, sperm is alive,
eggs are alive, it’s all life—is still totally dependent on a woman.
And that dependence puts it in the domain of her choice. “That’s what I
embrace,” he says.

But it’s hard not to look at those tiny fingers, no bigger than the tip of a toothpick.

Does that ever disturb him?

“When I recognize whole fetal parts? No. Because I’m not deluded about what this whole process is.”

And what does examining this tissue tell him? Does this satisfy another state regulation?